


venus laughing, venus singing, venus moaning (oh my goddess)

by thatsparrow



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Breathplay, Established Relationship, F/F, Held Down, Pre-Canon, Sparring, thigh riding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:01:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26223829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsparrow/pseuds/thatsparrow
Summary: Andromache strikes first, as is her custom.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 11
Kudos: 47
Collections: Femsub Semi-Flash 2020





	venus laughing, venus singing, venus moaning (oh my goddess)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smallprotector](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallprotector/gifts).



> title from "venus" by anaïs mitchell

"Ready?"

Quynh smiles. "Always."

Andromache strikes first, as is her custom. ("I've shed blood on too many battlefields," she'd said to Nicolo once, "to grow any older waiting for the next to begin.") She's fast, as fast as she was in her early-centuries youth, and so her first blow is a current-quick thing to the inside of Quynh's knee, the blunt end of her staff aiming for the soft collection of muscle and tendon behind the hard shell of Quynh's kneecap.

It's close, but Quynh knows Andromache's patterns as well as her own, is as quick to answer the strike as Andromache was to deliver it. Her staff dips down to catch Andromache's before it can buckle her left leg, muscles shifting in her arms as she braces, deflects the blow to the outside of her shin before bringing the other end of her staff around toward the base of Andromache's ribcage. What would be bruising and bone-cracking misses as Andromache twists, pivots to the side, the end of Quynh's staff grazing past her stomach. Once, they would have pulled their punches, still feeling out the limits of their new immortality, still wary of the very real threat of pain, but by now they've grown past such hesitation; neither of them will improve by handling each other with padded gloves. (True, too, that they've spent so many centuries sparring with one another that it's already even odds whether either of them will manage to land a hit at all. Yusuf and Nicolo place bets on it, trading chores as Andromache and Quynh exchange blows.)

"You're getting slower," Quynh teases as she blocks another attack, the _rat-a-tat_ of their staves echoing around the makeshift training room. "Usually you make me work much harder to stop that."

"I'm getting old," Andromache says, grinning as she goes in overhead for Quynh's collarbone.

Quynh laughs as she deflects, responds, sends Andromache back on the defensive. "You can't keep using that excuse."

"I'm pretty sure I can stretch a few more centuries out of it."

Strikes to the shoulders, the hips, to soft nerve clusters and breakable bone. How many times have they fought together like this? Whether side-by-side on body-littered battlefields or in backroom training sessions to keep their skills as sharp as the honed edge of Andromache's axe, they play for keeps, let loose in the comfort that neither can really hurt the other—equally by virtue of their immortality and their blindfolded familiarity with the other's techniques. It's a dance as often as it is a fight, fluid and synchronous before turning sharp and staccato, the flow of a river's current turned rough and roiling when it runs against the rock. They edge out their advantages where they can—Andromache's millennia-honed strength threatening to push Quynh to her knees, the lightning-fast return of Quynh's parries keeping Andromache endlessly on her toes. They fight until their hands have gone slick from sweat, their breathing turned rough, their bodies bruised a dozen times over before healing back to unblemished skin.

Just as Andromache spots her opening, though—the slightest hitch in Quynh's defense as she readies for her next attack—Quynh comes in low, taking advantage of Andromache's momentary distraction to duck past her strike, hooking her staff behind Andromache's shin and twisting hard and sudden enough to send them both tumbling to the floor, a tangle of shifting legs and bruising elbows. Before Andromache can reclaim her bearings, Quynh has her pinned—her weight settled on Andromache's torso, knees locked around Andromache's hips and the line of her staff pressed up and under Andromache's chin.

"Yield," Quynh says, still breathing heavy but smiling wide, cheeks flushed with the glow of her success. She tenses her legs to hold herself steady, and as Andromache feels the pulse of Quynh's muscles at her waist, something in her aches, low and wanting, some need sparked to life at the way Quynh has her pinned to the ground.

Whether because she can hear the slight hitch in Andromache's breathing, or because she recognizes the way Andromache's eyes turn dark, Quynh's smile turns wicked, sharp-edged enough to open Andromache to the bone. She leans forward, lingering a breath above where the pressure of the staff is keeping Andromache's head still.

"Is this what you want?" Quynh asks, low. She rolls her hips just enough for Andromache to feel the subtlest hint of friction, to sharpen the rough, messy shape of her desire into a pointed, hungry thing. Andromache swallows around the weight of the staff at her throat as Quynh gives her a steady look. With the little room she has, Andromache nods.

Keeping an even weight on the staff—just enough to hold Andromache in place, to maintain the barest hint of pressure on her windpipe—Quynh shifts her hips again, nudging Andromache's legs apart with her knee, resettling herself so her legs are bracketing the solid line of Andromache's upper thigh. Slowly, the weight of the staff held steady, she shifts herself against the muscle, riding her cunt along the tensed length of Andromache's thigh, working herself to the edge. As she watches—as she can hear the rapid hitch in Quynh's breathing, can feel the warmth of Quynh's cunt against her leg—Andromache goes slicker and slicker from want, wound-up and needy and any friction promised from Quynh's leg between her own sitting achingly out of reach. Just for a moment, Andromache gives into the frustration, shifts her hips toward the line of Quynh's thigh looking for some fraction of release, but the pressure of the staff against her throat is immediate, enough to choke off a breath until she holds herself still again. All the while, Quynh looks down at her, amused and unyielding, her own rhythm remaining unbroken.

When Quynh comes, it's a sudden, near-silent thing—her eyes still focused on Andromache's blown-wide pupils as a shiver runs through her, hips going still as the muscles in her legs tense vise-tight around Andromache's thigh. Quynh exhales shakily as she leans back, finally easing the weight of the staff from its lock against Andromache's neck. By now, Andromache is so desperate for any sort of friction that she nearly _keens_ as Quynh pulls herself to her feet, letting her own leg drag along the line of Andromache's cunt as she does, a blissful answer to her need and still nowhere near enough.

Leaving Andromache there on the floor, wet and wanting, Quynh stands, languid and loose-limbed, resuming her stance with the staff a few paces away. As Andromache rises in turn, Quynh raises an eyebrow at her, casual and unaffected, and says, "Shall we go again?"

This time, Andromache has no intention of losing.


End file.
